Maxim Histogram advice

[SteveL]

Hi all

Just wondering how far I can push my exposure times with my new kit (news tomorrow ). Right now my histograms look like this:

What wouldan ideal histogramlook like? where should the right hand sidetail offto nothing? 1/3rd of the way across from the right? halfway? I`m in the unusual position of having to be careful of not over exposing my subs and making blobby stars, but some advice would be helpful right now.

[barkis]

Sorry Steve, I would be delighted to be able to advise you, but you may as well be asking If I could make you an Atomic Bomb.

You are going to need an experienced imager to answer this one for you I guess, and I have not passed Go yet.

As that Histogram is out of Maxim , I need schooling on it myself, so I will be looking out for the replies coming in.

Ron.

[steppenwolf]

Looks like a perfectly normal and typical histogram to me! My histograms look like this too with both the carets over on the left hand side and zilch on the right hand side.

[Martin 2]

Steve, not sure if this helps but have a look

http://www.mistisoftware.com/astronomy/Process_MaxImDL_DDP.htm

M2

[MartinB]

Good question Steve. I use the info window in maxim and run a cursor over the stars to see whether the stars are getting saturated. I don't worry if one or 2 are saturated but if all the brighter stars are at >65000 then you are going to loose star colour and the image will suffer. I've found that I'm hopeless at judging star saturation by eye alone.